


anywhere you go

by chenkitays



Category: The Poppy War - R. F. Kuang
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Other, Pain, Platonic Soulmates, Post-Canon, Spoilers for Book 3: The Burning God, but also happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29726892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chenkitays/pseuds/chenkitays
Summary: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BURNING GOD"She would tell Pipaji and Dulin that they had done well. She would tell Suni, Baji and Ramsa that she was sorry. She would tell Altan that he was right. She would tell Master Jiang thank you." (p534 of TBG)Rin visits her dead loved ones (except Altan cause fuck Altan), and tries to make sense of the afterlife with her friends.
Relationships: Chen Kitay & Fang Runin, Fang Runin & Sring Venka, Fang Runin/Yin Nezha, Jiang Ziya & Fang Runin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	anywhere you go

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in like November/December and found it in my notes recently, so I figured I'd post it cause why not. Just a note to say that this has nothing to do with my other TPW afterlife fics: in this one, there's no transitionary spectral world, just an afterlife. 
> 
> also wanted to give a trigger warning for mention of what happened to Venka in Golyn Niis.

“You’re breaking cycles all over the place, aren’t you? Always so dramatic,” says Venka. Rin reaches backwards to smack her but she’s not paying much attention. She’s watching Nezha. 

He’s standing in the spirit world. The dragon doesn’t torment him in here, and yet he always appears when he falls asleep. Kitay thinks he’s looking for her. 

But Rin won’t go to him. 

She watches him from afar. She longs to memorize the lines of his face with her fingers. To feel that lovely pain of his fist connecting with her. To talk to him, scream at him, cry with him. But she never does. 

Rin knows how horrible it is for a ghost to haunt you. She herself was tormented by Altan’s spirit. Souls change when they meet a living person. All of their worst qualities come out, their resentment and anger are multiplied a hundredfold. She would die before inflicting that on Nezha. 

Well, she supposes, that’s kind of a stupid promise. Because she’s slightly dead already. 

So she forces herself to look away when Nezha’s beautiful face appears, searching for her. She did him the greatest cruelty possible by condemning him to solitude in the realm of the living. Leaving him alone in the spirit world is the greatest kindness imaginable.

It’s too hard to stand there and look at him, so close yet unreachable. So they leave. They search for their dead. They make a promise to meet each other at Sinegard in one year from now and part ways, each off to seek people. 

Kitay finds his parents and sister first. He never had time to properly mourn them in life. Defense Minister Chen clasps his shoulder and won’t let go. Lady Chen’s face is full of sorrow that her little boy died so young. Kinata’s eyes shine with bitterly proud tears. She’s watched her smartass baby brother grow into one of the finest military strategists Nikan has ever seen. She’s watched her little kindhearted Kitay grow into a accomplice to mass murder. When she reaches out and ruffles his hair, Kitay starts crying. 

"I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” 

“Not your fault that cunt Vaisra started an uprising,” she replies. 

“Language, Kinata!” says Lady Chen. But Kitay and his sister are laughing. 

He leaves them after a while, promising to come back. He travels to Yuelu Mountain, the place he always wanted to study at. He takes a moment to explore it, regretting what could have been. Kitay finds Master Irjah sitting in a courtyard that overlooks a still, frozen lake. 

“I told you she was dangerous.” It sounds like his old master has been waiting for him. Kitay swallows and sits down opposite Irjah. “You let her pull you along.”    
  
“No,” Kitay corrects. “I followed her. I followed her everywhere, and I’ll follow her anywhere.” It’s a truth he hasn’t spoken aloud before, but he can’t lie to the Strategy Master. Kitay refuses to deflect all the blame onto Rin. He regrets his choices, regrets hers, but he doesn’t regret staying by her side.

Irjah sees it in his eyes. He looks reproachful, but Kitay doesn’t care. The rest of the world sees Fang Runin as a monster. And she is. But she’s also a girl, a girl too young for the cruelty the world inflicted on her. She’s his soulmate, his Rin, and she’s funny and rude and brave and reckless and loyal. He won’t apologize for loving her. 

“Fill me in on everything, will you?” says Irjah. Kitay is more than happy to oblige.

  
  


  
  
  


The Cike comes to Rin first. All of them are back together, except Altan. She laughs through tears as Ramsa charges into her, knocking her down with his arms wrapped tightly around her middle. “I’m sorry,” she tells him, pressing her lips to the top of his head, “I’m so sorry.”    
  
“Don’t beat yourself up, kid,” says Suni gently. “We would have died eventually anyway. The first rule of the Cike…” 

“is that we cull,” she finishes for him. Baji smacks her upside the head. 

“We’re not supposed to be culled because our idiot commander was making eyes at a pretty boy, though.” 

“Fuck off.”    
  
He envelops her in a bone-crushing hug. “It’s okay. We all make mistakes. Yours just happen to be substantially bigger than the rest of us.”    
  
“Besides,” Ramsa pipes up, “I shit in your bed to make up for it.”    
  
Rin chokes. “ _ What _ ?”    
  
“Ghost shit. He did it every once in a while. I told him it was disgusting, but he’s Ramsa.” Qara approaches, tightly clasping Rin’s hand. “How is my brother?”    
  
“We parted as friends,” she tells her. “I think he’s going to make a great leader.”   
  
“He will.” Qara’s eyes shine with fierce pride. 

“Where’s Altan?” Even as she asks it, she’s not sure she even wants to know. 

“Speer.”    
  
Rin sighs. She wants to seek him out. Wants to ask him why he tormented her for so long. Wants to tell him he was right. But she doesn’t know what good that’ll do. 

She’s made peace with his memory a long time ago and she doesn’t want to go back there. What’s the point of talking to someone who hurt her and tormented her for so long? Maybe someday, she’ll want to work it all out with him. But for now, she pushes him out of her mind and laughs with her friends. 

There’s one more soul that she has to seek out. The one that she’s been aching to see. Rin returns to Sinegard, her feet taking her on the familiar path to the Lore garden. To her surprise, Pipaji and Dulin are running around, chasing each other through poppy plants. It’s good that they ended up here. She spent so much time telling them about what she learned at Sinegard, it must have seemed like a haven to them. 

Rin’s heart mends itself back together just a little. She praises them, tells them how proud she is of them and smiles as their spines straighten, as their faces light up. It’s the same way she looked at Master Jiang. 

And of course, there he is. The devil himself drops from a tree and Rin yelps, surprised even now by his antics. She feels like a student at Sinegard again as he dusts off his robes and frowns at her. 

“You took your time,” he says. 

Rin hesitates, unsure of which man she’s talking to. Lore Master Jiang? The Gatekeeper? The Dragon Emperor’s blade?   
  
Or perhaps someone new. Perhaps Jiang Ziya has destroyed himself so much, has lived so many lives that he is building himself up again. Perhaps he too, is discovering who he is. 

“Where are Daji and Riga?” she asks. 

He shrugs. “Who knows? They’re probably just fucking in the forest but they could also be preparing a coup on the ghost king.”    
  
Rin laughs. “There’s a ghost king?”    
  
He smacks her arm with his staff. “Of course not! Did I teach you nothing? Were you not paying attention in our lessons about the spirit world?  _ Young people _ ,” he says in disgust. “No attention span.” 

She doesn’t know what to say or do. Jiang sacrificed himself, sacrificed everything for her and now he’s acting like she’s just a sixteen year old to be chastised. “Master…”    
  
“Oh, fine. Go on and prosternate yourself at my feet, thank me for saving you, weep into my shoulder.”    
  
Rin wrinkles her nose. “I’m not doing the first thing.” 

“No, I don’t suppose you would.” His eyes are twinkling and Rin surges into his arms, hugging him tightly. Her eyes prickle with tears.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “You always said that you couldn’t save me or Altan. But you did save me in the end.” 

Jiang pats her back. “You’re very welcome, Runin. Now ask me your other question.”    
  
Rin pulls back, wondering how he knows. “My father was Nikara. If he wasn’t, I would never have been able to hide my Speerly traits.” He nods. “Hanelai looked exactly like me. You and Hanelai were lovers at some point.” It was a theory that Kitay had come up with, one of those nights in the war tents. She had repressed it until now, unable to bear the pain thinking of it brought her. 

He brushes her hair away from her face. “Does it matter?”    
  
“Does whose ballsack I came out of matter, you mean?”    
  
He frowns. “Disgustingly put, but yes.”   
  
She thinks about it for a few seconds. “No,” she decides, “it doesn’t. Because you were the one who was there.” 

He smiles then, a proud smile. “For what it’s worth, I do think it was me. But even if it wasn’t…” The words go unsaid, but Rin knows. 

“Thank you,” she says again. 

“Stop thanking me. Go water my plants.” 

  
  


  
  
  


Venka wanders the spirit world, unsure of where she’s going. She doesn’t want to talk to her dead, especially not all those stupid fucks who condemmed and blamed her after Golyn Niis. But she can’t go with Rin or Kitay because they’ve made up their minds. Once those two decide something, damn everyone else. 

She envies their bond. They were soulmates even before they were anchored, she thinks. Perfect complements to each other. Rin would burn down the world to save Kitay and despite his moral righteousness, he would do the same. Venka wonders what it’s like to have someone love you that much. To have a loyalty that fierce and for it to be reciprocated. To have someone who knows your soul intimately, understands every flaw and horrible thought, and still loves you. 

When you have that, why should anybody else even matter? 

She finds herself at Sinegard - not the school, the capital. Venka wanders through the streets where she grew up, playing with Kitay and Nezha. She remembers how naive she was back then. Young Venka had dreamed of going to school, succeeding her father as Imperial Finance Minister. There was always talk of her being married to Nezha. She laughs at the thought, now, takes a moment to regret losing his friendship. And yet she would do it all over again, because how could she choose any other side than Rin’s?

Men, she thinks, always talk so much yet do so little. She remembers when Nezha returned to Arlong after the third Poppy War. Word had spread of what had happened to her, because apparently people had nothing better to gossip about than the most traumatic experience of Venka’s life. He had barged into her room and sat down next to her, holding her hands gently.  _ Meimei _ , he had said,  _ please, tell me what I can do to help _ . 

_ Let me fight _ , she had snarled. Everyone else in this fucking city kept treating her like a broken piece of glass, like a fragile vase. They kept telling her to rest, to heal. But Venka didn’t want that.  _ Please, Nezha, let me fucking fight. I can’t just sit on my ass. I can’t.  _

_ Your hands and arms haven’t healed yet.  _

_ But when they do? _

_ Then you can fight.  _ She had been so grateful to hear it that she had nearly started crying. Finally, here was her friend, her brother, respecting what she wanted. But when it came down to it, he hadn’t followed through on his word. 

No. It had been  _ Rin _ who pushed for Venka to be allowed on the fleet,  _ Rin  _ who had asked her to fight in the Cike,  _ Rin  _ who had risked her life and Kitay’s to save a young girl from being raped. So when it came down to it, why was Nezha even remotely surprised that Venka had been on the vicious fiery girl’s side? Duty was such a bullshit concept. 

She wrenches herself out of her memories and sinks down opposite her father’s estate. They’ve rebuilt it over the past year, and it looks as glorious as it ever did. She wants to burn it to the ground. 

  
  
  
  
  


A year later, she reunites with her friends. Rin, Venka and Kitay travel the world, unseen. They visit other countries, and learn just how limited their knowledge of the world was. Their planet is huge, vast and there’s so many more people than they could ever imagine. They speculate about other gods, other afterlives, other dimensions.

“I want to haunt the Maker for all the bullshit he pulled on me,” Rin jokes one day. 

“Was haunting me not enough?” Kitay replies lazily. 

“I’m a joy to be around.”    
  
“Who told you that?” Rin tackles him to the ground and they wrestle lightheartedly, laughing. They never really grew up, she thinks. They never had the chance to. They were children of war, forced to assume responsibility too early and never truly maturing by consequence. Too often, Rin and Kitay spend their nights holding on tightly to each other, limbs tangled together, trying to ward off the nightmares that still plague them. 

It’s ridiculous that the goddess who nearly destroyed the entire country is the same girl who finds herself shaking and sobbing in Kitay’s arms in the middle of the night. Ridiculous that the genius, calculating Sinegardian strategist is the same boy who buries his face into Rin’s chest as though that mere contact can chase away his bad dreams. It’s ridiculous, yet it makes perfect sense.

Rin regrets dying, leaving such a broken world behind. She regrets the life she never got to live. But she’s also happy that she’s here with her friends, able to laugh without fearing for her life every second. A lot of souls are sad, mourning, wisps of who they once were. But not her. Rin burns too bright to fade. So do her friends. 

Kitay likes to talk to people. He learns more every day, cramming his mind full of history and facts. He even manages to track down Sunzi, the greatest military strategist to ever live, and has the nerve to question some of his principles because he’s Chen Kitay and what else would he do? He’ll never get bored, Rin thinks. Sometimes she goes with him and listens. She watches the furrow between his brows, the quiet scholarly joy on his face. She’ll never get tired of it. 

Venka sometimes disappears for days at a time, but Rin is always glad when she comes back. “My father died,” she says once. 

“Are you going to try and talk to him?” 

Venka shakes her head. “That fuckhead can err alone.”    
  
Rin squeezes her hand. She doesn’t know what to say, isn’t good at offering comfort. But Venka squeezes back. 

It’ll be another fifty years before Nezha joins them. They meet him on the Red Cliffs of Arlong. Rin stays away at first, letting Kitay and Venka catch up with him first. She’s been thinking about everything she wants to say to him for so long, but now that he’s here she doesn’t know how to say it. 

On the third day, she sits on the edge of the cliff, dangling her legs off the side. A while later, Nezha joins her. 

“Hello.” The word is charged with so much emotion that Rin doesn’t even know where to begin. She turns to look at him. His beautiful face is not a day older than twenty-one. It’s the face she sees every night when she goes to sleep. The face of her dreams and nightmares. 

Rin turns back towards the ocean. Their shoulders brush, but she doesn’t move away. 

They sit in silence for a long while. 

“I looked for you in my dreams,” he says. 

“I know.”    
  
“Why didn’t you come, then?” His voice is angry but it’s also pleading. “You left me alone, Rin.  _ Completely alone.  _ I had no one, and I couldn’t even have you when I went to sleep.” 

Rin swallows. “It would have been worse if I came. I stayed away for your own good.”    
  
“You don’t get to decide what’s my ‘own good’ or isn’t!” She looks at him. “I needed someone. I needed  _ you _ . And you didn’t come.”    
  
“Do you know,” she says quietly, “what happened in my dreams with Altan? When his ghost plagued my dreams? He beat me. He taunted me. He drove me insane. Would you have wanted that?” She lifts her shirt, showing him the handprint. “Would you have wanted  _ this _ ?”    
  
“Altan wasn’t like you. He was a piece of shit - ” Rin lashes her hand out, digging her nails into his chin. 

“Altan was  _ exactly  _ like me. And my ghost would have been exactly like his. The only difference between us is that I cared enough about you to stay away.”    
  
“Or maybe you were just too much of a fucking coward to face me.” He shoves Rin away from him. Unbalanced, she topples off the cliff, floating in midair. 

“Trying to kill me again?” she asks viciously. “Was once not enough for you?” The absolute pained shock in his eyes jolts her and she tries to backtrack. “Nezha - ”

He shakes his head and scrambles to his feet, running away. 

Rin waits on the cliff. The sun sets on her alone.

The next day, he sits down next to her again. His arm lies gently against hers and Rin wants nothing more than to grab his hand, hold it tightly and never let go. 

“I keep reliving the moment,” he says. “I can still feel the blade in my hand. Your fingers forcing mine. Your blood on my hands. I dreamed about it.”    
  
“What else did you dream about?”    
  
“You killing me. Those were the best nights.” 

Rin has nothing to say to that. When Nezha rests his head on her shoulder, she closes her eyes. 

They spend a long time on that cliff. Sometimes, Kitay or Venka joins them but usually it’s just the two of them. Their conversations are brief, often only piercing the silence once a day. Sometimes, one of them will go too far and the other will leave, unable to handle it. But they’ll always find themselves back on the cliff the next morning. They have a lifetime of hurts to work through, and an eternity to work through them. 

“That night on the sampan,” Rin says. They’ve been avoiding the topic and Nezha stiffens slightly. “I genuinely never thought you would hurt me. I thought you were going to kiss me.”    
  
It’s almost embarrassing to confess, even now. Rin feels so foolish. She had been such a stupid drunk girl, thinking that she could ever live a normal life where a beautiful boy would take her out on a boat and kiss her under the stars. 

“It was a test,” he says miserably. “If you didn’t say the right thing, I had to do it. I felt like I was drowning.” 

“You still did it.”    
  
“I’m sorry for betraying you.”    
  
“But you’re not sorry for why you did it.”    
  
He sighs. “No.” 

“Fuck you.” But Rin takes a deep breath. “I understand.” 

“But you don’t forgive me.”    
  
“No.”    
  
They share a small smile. Rin looks away, suddenly embarrassed. Nezha’s fingers touch her chin, turning her head back towards him. “I wanted to kiss you, too.”    
  
“Oh.” Her heart stopped beating decades ago, yet she feels like it’s racing. 

“Can I kiss you now?” 

“I don’t know,” Rin jokes, “can you?”  _ Great feminine wiles, Rin, _ says Venka’s voice in her head.   
  
In answer, he leans in until his lips just barely brush hers. Then, as though he can’t hold himself back, he brings her face towards him and kisses her properly. 

It’s like being set on fire. Rin doesn’t know how much time passes before he finally pulls back, his beautiful face as soft as it is under the moonlight. Immediately feeling awkward, she shifts, turning away from him, but he’s not going to let her stupidity ruin the moment. He tugs her into his arms, letting her back rest against his chest. 

“Why,” he says, “did we fight so much when we were alive?”    
_ Because I loved you and hated you and envied you, and you loved me and hated me and feared me.  _ “Because you were a prick and I was ugly,” she says instead. 

Nezha laughs and Rin wants to bottle the sound. “Was?”    
  
She punches his thigh and he yelps. “I’ll break your pretty little nose, then we’ll see who the ugly one is.” But she rests her head against him and he holds her tighter. His warm embrace always makes her feel so small. It terrifies her, it thrills her, it doesn’t make her feel even remotely safe, but nothing about Nezha ever did. She likes it. She wants to sit here forever.

This, she thinks, this is what they could have been if the circumstances were different. If they weren’t corrupted by war and betrayal. If they had been given the time and space to grow. If they could have afforded to let their love surpass their fear and hatred. It would never have been possible in life. She knows that. But maybe death is their second chance.

At sunset, Kitay and Venka join them, sitting on either side of them. “Can’t believe I have to spend my eternity with you guys,” Kitay grumbles. “Always hoped I’d get to have friends who don’t have shit for brains.”

Rin hits him. “Shut up.” 

He slips his hand into hers and she squeezes it, seeing the question in his gaze. Kitay knows that something’s changed. _You’re good?_ I’m better than I’ve been in a while. _Okay._ _I love you._ I love you too. 

“I’m not getting in on this orgy,” Venka warns. 

“You shut up too.” 

“Fine.” She stretches her legs across Rin’s and Nezha’s. “You two make an excellent footrest.”

The Hesperians have two afterlives. One for eternal damnation and one for paradise. Rin used to ask herself what that heaven would be like. She thinks it’s this. Just sitting with the three people she loves most, quipping and insulting each other, watching the waves lap at the base of the cliffs. 

  
  



End file.
